If you are reading this, that means you have Internet access, and if you have Internet access, that means, in all likelihood, my country is at war with your country. If you do not have Internet access, and cannot read this, that means that my country is not only at war with your country, but you will soon have Internet access so you could, if you wanted to, read this page, and at the same time eat your Wendy's Super Value Meal while wearing some cheap-shit apparel from Wal-Mart and drinking Starbucks' really, really strong Breakfast Blend in a Thermos with Yu-Gi-Oh! branded on it. Hooray, we're all going to hell in a hand basket, what a fiasco, it's not my fault, and so on.

As for the year of film - let's just ignore the we-found-Saddam-stuff, now-can-we-have-the-lives-back-of-all-the-soldiers-and-civilians-we-killed babbling - I'm not sure what to make of it. Some of the best films I saw I had to travel - with friends, of course (I hate driving) - long distances and traverse many canyons; for some of the 'other' best films, I had to get technologically competent and equally shady friends to grab me bootlegs from various secret locations. How else was I to see something as perversely weird as Demonlover? How else was I to see the outrageous Gozu, which has probably the most fucked-up ending of any movie I've seen in recent memory? How else could I see the original cut of Dogville? Or, for better or worse, Ken Park?

So, let me clarify: film isn't dead - in fact, it's very much alive. You just have to really, really, really fish for it. Like, big time. And if you live in, say, Cheese Tumor, Wisconsin, you're in trouble. Hollywood's too preoccupied with pirates, selling soda and comic book CGI junk to challenge anyone with anything (closest you get? Cold Mountain. Swallow that.). And speaking of challenging, if there's anything unsettling to take from 2003, it's Irréversible. I typically frown upon abject nihilism, but this is one of those super intelligent films that kicks you in the teeth, kills a few innocent bystanders and then rapes you in the alley and makes you like it ... and what's worse, it doesn't even do all that in that order. It is a great movie, and great movies are still being made. How about that Tarantino? And Mr. Zwigoff? And Mr. Von Trier? And Mr. Miike, who is completely looney tunes? And Mr. Maddin? I think Gus van Sant is a great filmmaker ... but I actually prefer both Finding Forrester and To Die For to his newest two. Don't worry, I'm keeping my day job.

Fiction, on the other hand, is dead and rotting. Sure, you have your prerequisite young-uns (Smith, Haslett, Foer), but who's reading them? "Books suck" wrote Michael Wolff in New York, and he didn't know how right he was (I'm currently working through Klosterman's commendable Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs along with Groucho Marx's The Groucho Letters, just FYI). Experimentation in writing is virtually nonexistent, unless you consider House of Leaves actual writing, which I don't. Anyone trying to get published these days better find a good agent (though Mr. Eggers, commendably, fired his and started his own business, which prints 2,000-page dissertations on morality by William Vollmann) or a good shtick. Like, fighting with Oprah ... or denouncing feminism. You know where to go from there.

Music also continues to rock the pants off your grandma, and anyone with a taste for the loud might like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Fever to Tell or with a yearning for the soft might get into Arab Strap's The Shy Retirer EP. You can never go wrong with Radiohead (Hail to the Thief) or Cody ChesnuTT (The Headphone Masterpiece). Give me a little sugar. Ow! I am your neighbor!


My Top Ten List, along with apologies, insults, hideous grammar and an open letter to a certain near-anorexic British actress critiquing her casual attire while professing my undying love.

John's Best & Worst of the Year.